Bachelors' Spirit-Wife
Enga · deity · mythic ancestral · Recorded classification
Enga sangai (eastern) / sandalu (Laiapu) = the bachelors' growth-and-purification cult; the spirit-wife is an ancestral cult-being rather than a fully named goddess, rendered here as deity (cult-ancestress tier). Wiessner & Tumu (1998) date the cult's spread to roughly the seventh generation before the present. The vernacular personal name of the spirit-woman is not consistently recorded, hence empty term values.
Domains
- male initiation
- growth and fertility
Powers
- MAKE the secluded bachelors grow to manhood
Sources
- In the Enga sangai (Laiapu sandalu) bachelors' cult the secluded youths are regarded as married to a spirit-woman embodied in sacred plants, who ensures they grow into mature, marriageable men.: Gibbs, P. (1995). 'The Sandalu Bachelor Ritual among the Laiapu Enga.' Anthropos 90: 27-47. (ethnography); Meggitt, M.J. (1964). 'Male-Female Relationships in the Highlands of Australian New Guinea.' American Anthropologist 66(4), pt. 2. (ethnography); Wiessner, P. & Tumu, A. (1998). Historical Vines. Smithsonian Institution Press, on the spread of the sangai/sandalu cult. (ethnography)